


Forever, Unconditional

by pipelliot



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Canon Era, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Schmoop, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 05:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipelliot/pseuds/pipelliot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gaius died, it was almost like Merlin died a little too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever, Unconditional

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted over at the Kink Meme under the [prompt:](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/31491.html?thread=32497667#t32497667) _"Merlin's homesick for Ealdor. Arthur notices. H/C please."_  
>  Er, not entirely happy with this one either (despite edits) but.... *throws at you anyway* :)

After Gaius died, it was almost like Merlin died a little too.

Merlin loved Gaius. He loved him rather a lot, and he loved that Gaius loved him too. So when Gaius died, not entirely long after Hunith, Merlin had no one to love him anymore. And if Merlin-the-liar was honest with himself, that was what he missed the most. 

Merlin is a lot of things, he knows. He knows selfish is one of them.

When Merlin sat on the ground of his old room, the one Gaius had so graciously given up for him, he stared at the wall and the heavy clouds outside the old tower window. With the wood of his old creaky bed digging into his back, he stared and stared as if the wall was to blame for taking Gaius away, like the clouds were the reason Merlin was left behind alone and unloved. 

And when Arthur, king of all Albion, sat on the ground next to him, Merlin didn't want to look at him, let alone speak. That wasn't fair at all, he knew. He knew that Arthur was not to blame, and sometimes Merlin forgot that Arthur had known Gaius for far longer than he had. Arthur had in fact known him for all his life. So Merlin knew that, of course, Arthur was grieving too. But while Merlin sat on the dusty old ground with the scratching wood poking in to his spine and red eyes dry and unblinking, Merlin found he didn't much care.

Instead he said simply, voice hoarse from disuse, “I miss it.”

And Arthur had stayed perfectly still.

“Ealdor, I mean. You’d wonder why. My mother is dead. Will is dead. There’s no one there to miss.”

The complete lack of anything in his tone frightened him a bit. He chuckled, a sour thing. “ I'm just a desperate man, I suppose. It’s all right, Arthur. I wouldn't expect you to understand.”

“Merlin,” Arthur sounded careful.“I know what it’s like to-“

“No. No, I don’t think you do.” He sighed. Merlin was tired. He was so magnificently tired.

“First my mother, now Gaius. Its not- there's no one left. I have no one left." 

And when Arthur tried to object, he’d said “You don't know what it's like to live in a world where you're not loved."

And that was true, Merlin knew it.

It was like the entire world was at the feet of its beautiful king. His people adored him. His knights adored him, every single one of them and their squires. And of course the queen herself, who did not adore but loved him with all of her heart.

See, Arthur was loved. The proper kind. The forever, unconditional kind. Arthur had been loved his entire life and, as far as Merlin was concerned, would continue to be loved long after he was gone. 

Arthur hadn't needed Gaius like Merlin had.

He knew he was being petty, selfish- always so selfish- but he couldn’t help it. Merlin supposed that was just who he was now.

He waited for Arthur to tell him as much, to scald him for being so dishonourable, so cowardly. To be told outright to just get over himself, that others were grieving too, that Gaius was a wonderful man and Merlin had no right to be this way. Merlin pulled his knees to his chest, laying his forehead on top of his folded arms, and waited.

He continued to stare at his worn boots and the cracked floor boards beneath him until there was an extended sigh to his left and he was being drawn to Arthur’s chest and held tighter than he had ever been in his life. Tighter even than when they had found a boy drowned in the lake by Ealdor the same day Merlin had gone away the entire day to play with the forest. Hunith had been in hysterics- the kind when you loved someone, the proper kind.

Except Merlin wouldn't ever have that kind of love again.

So he clutched onto the fabric he was being pressed against and he let himself cry. The arm around his shoulders tightened impossibly further and another was being wrapped around his head, cradling it to Arthur’s chest. His hearing was somewhat muffled, only the thud- thud-thud sounding beneath his ear and pounding against his hand. Merlin thought that maybe he was being rocked a little too, fingers carding through his hair and comforting words spoken perhaps just a little louder and sounding a little more choked than intended. And if he felt the frequent press of soft kisses to the crown of his head, he didn’t mention it.

When the sky turned violet and the sun was about to set, he finally stopped. He opened his eyes, smiling though it hadn’t reached them as he told Arthur he was sorry for his dampened tunic, and that he would offer to clean it just like old times if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t really want to. Arthur rolled his eyes and laughed, but there must have been something in Merlin’s expression just then that cut the sudden lightness short, because Arthur was reaching to pull Merlin close, to hold his head in his hands, gently stroking the dark lines beneath Merlin’s eyes and his too-sharp cheekbones with his thumbs, ring pressing coldly against warm skin.

Merlin noticed the particular redness of Arthur’s eyes as he told Merlin that he was loved. That he was so, very loved. And Merlin noticed how desperate Arthur had sounded, how young he had looked, pleading with Merlin to believe him. As though if there was only one thing in the world that he was positively sure of, it was that.

Merlin rested his heavy head on Arthur’s shoulder and he told him stories of his old home. He told him of Hunith, and Will, and how he was teased by the other children for his magic and his ears. He told him of the nearby lakes he and Will would rescue frogs from in the wintertime, how in the winter they’d have to huddle close together to keep warm and how everyone would share to keep just about fed. He told him about blind old lady Ragnall, who always gave him pots of honey in the spring, and how his mother had cried the first time he showed her the burning flame in his palm, telling her proudly of how it hadn’t even hurt him.

And as Merlin told Arthur all of these things, and as Arthur lightly pressed his lips against Merlin's forehead, playing with the hair curling at his nape, Merlin allowed himself to believe that maybe- just maybe- he had been loved all along. 

(The forever, unconditional kind.)


End file.
